05 - Arch-I-Slang Got You Scratching Your Head

“Make your job easier and VE acronyms from your arch-i-slang.”
- Elizabeth Lockwood

Overview

Industry Acronyms! In this light hearted episode we unpack the use of acronyms by exploring the:

Relevance and use of acronyms within the architectural community
History and difference between acronyms and bacronyms
Arch-i-slang acronyms challenge
Our role as interior designers and how it relates to the use of acronyms

Show Notes

A&D Community

As I prepared this week’s podcast I couldn’t help but find acronyms everywhere I looked. Its like when I was little and played slug bug with my brother. Ya know the game where you try to find as many Volkswagen beetles driving around and every time you find one you sock your brother in the arm. Ok, so maybe you could play with Tesla’s now. Or maybe its not PC anymore to sock your brother in the arm. I am sure you can resonate with me when the more you look for evidence of something the more you feel like the universe shows it too you.

Example

In one email this week I ran across 11 acronyms in one paragraph talking about the scope of work for a project. This absurd abundance of architectural simplification got me to thinking.

As the email kicked off I found a handful of industry standard acronyms woven in. For example, DD, CD1 and BIM. I thought to myself, I can followings things here. With the exception of the project going from CD1 to CD3. I am still a little baffled as to the relationship and/or difference between the drawing preparation between CD1 and CD3. They then mentioned BIM (Building information modeling) aka Revit which made sense. Then I couldn’t help but chuckle at the last sentence in the email. It read as follows, “we are in IDR review and your deliverable isn’t required until the IFC submission per the SOW Appendix A matrix.” WTF I thought, having three acronyms in one sentence what am I supposed to do with this information. I proceeded to find my cheat sheet on acronyms for this client and 15 minutes later was able to translate the full email.

As I sit on massive conference calls with design teams across the country, some of the key players use acronym after acronym to explain the project process and phase we are in. In this particular case the acronyms are specific to this project type and are not typical ones you can google after the fact. Thus, my colleague and I are often left scrambling to jot down as many terms as we can to try to patch together the story after the fact. I mean in some of these massive projects there is an acronym for each building, each project phase and drawing submittal that are completely foreign to the conventions that time savers standard or AIA have established.

Tip #1

The design team(s) should use all the same project codes. Ours for billing purposes is sometimes off from the design team’s correspondence project code and man it gets confusing.

What is the history of acronyms?

In the 1950, the use of acronyms took a large leap. It was not until the 20th century that they became a mainstream writing resource. Rarely are words initially created to be used as an acronym. Acronyms refer to a word or name formed as an abbreviation derived from the original word or phrase. Historically speaking acronyms were used in Rome BC aka before Christian era. The official name for the Roman Empire and the Republic before it was abbreviated as SPQR aka Senatus Populusque Romanus. Apparently in the Hebrew language, they have a history of using acronyms to describe the Hebrew Bible, the old testament aka Tanakh.

During the mid to late 19th century, a acronym-disseminating trend spread through American and European business communities by abbreviating corporation names. Such as on the sides of railroad cars RF&P aka Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad or in the example of small print newspaper stock listings that got their data from AT&T aka American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Some well known commercial examples dating from the 1890s through 1920s include Nabisco aka National Biscuit Company, Esso from S.O. aka Standard Oil and Sunoco aka Sun Oil Company.

Current use

In the 21st century acronyms became abundant to abbreviate names of organizations and long or frequently referenced terms. Which would make the case for the abundance of MOD, ASR, RFP uses, right?

As I was digging in and researching the history of acronyms the term jargon surfaced as a key player in the meaning of an acronym. Such as the context of using EQ, TOP, UON on construction drawings.

Tip #2

It becomes apparent that the context of your acronym must be provide to give context and a sense of relevance in order for one to even minutely grasp the acronym.

Example

If I say EQ, TYP and CPT out of context one might not understand what I am saying. If I am referring to a set of construction documents and I write TYP next to a detail then there is a closer chance the acronym will be understood. Most importantly in construction document standards, we typically define possible acronyms used in the drawing set. So why is it that the courtesy gets dropped when we kick off projects and we start referencing inventive design phases?

Backronyms - Are a thing

Backronym according to Richard Nordquist from Thought Co. “ A backronym is a reverse acronym: an expression that has been formed from the letters of an existing word or name. Such as SAD aka Season Affective Disorder.

Example

Did you know Scuba is an acronym because it stands for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. In contrary, Golf is a backronym if you think it stands for ‘Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden.’ So, backronyms not to be confused with acronyms were created in the 1980’s and peaked in 2010 where they were found to have humorous intents to them.

What is the difference between texting slang and abbreviations?

So, using acronyms appears to be a slippery slope as we are in the digital world where short hand for texting or a quick email is the social norm.

Tip #3

I think we should question if it should be a professional norm as well.

SMS, textspeak or texting language is the slang commonly used for digital communication such as texting via phone and interoffice instant message. The early adoption of acronyms being using for digital communication was encouraged due to the capacity of the characters limits. We are talking pre I-Phone texting. Hard to imagine that was within this century. Another reason was for the convenience and accessibility of responding. It also allowed you to quickly add emotion to your thoughts you were communicating. How did you quickly communicate you were laughing over AOL Instant message or in a chat room to get your point across before a comment became misconstrued? You typed LOL or JK.

Arch-I-Slang Challenge Defined

Design Process

ASR – Architectural Supplementary Resource

RFP – Request for proposal

MOD – Modification

SOW – Scope of Work

SD – Schematic Design

DD – Design Development

CD – Construction Document

VE – Value Engineering

QAQC – Quality Assurance Quality Control

FFE – Furniture Fixtures and Equipment

CSI – Construction Specification Institute

COM – Customer Own Material

CA vs CO legal – Construction Administration vs. Construction Observation

ASI – Architectural Supplemental Instructions

CO – Change Order

OAC – Owner Architect Contractor

OFCI – Owner Furnished Contractor Installed

MEP – Mechanical Electrical Plumbing

RFI – Request for Information

GC – General Contractor

Drawing Terms

RFA – Revit Family File

RVT – Revit Model File

DWG – Autocadd file

JPG – Joint Photographic Expert Group (JPEG)

TIFF – Tagged Image File Format

PDF – Portable Document Format

AI – Adobe Illustrator

PSD – Adobe Photoshop

AFF – After Finish Floor

RCP – Reflected Ceiling Plan

TYP – Typical

EQ – Equal

AL – Align

UON – Unless Otherwise Noted

NTS – Not to scale

RO – Rough Opening

CPT – Carpet

ACT – Acoustic Ceiling Tile

OC – On Center

Lighting

Calcs – Calculations

CFL – Compact Fluorescent Light

LED – Light Emitting Diode

LM – Lumen

LPD – Lighting Power Density

FC – Footcandle

CRI – Color Rendering Index

Business Term

ROI – Return on Investment

LLC – Limited Liability Company

Standards

UL – Underwriter Laboratories

ASTM – American Society for Testing and Materials

ANSI – American National Standards Institute

ISO – International Organization Standardization

NFPA – National Fire Protection Agency

Sustainability

HPD – Health Product Declaration

EPD – Environmental Product Declaration

EPA – Environmental Protection Agency

ASHRAE – The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers

CX – Commissioning

Professional Organizations

ASID – American Society of Interior Design

IIDA – International Interior Design Association

IDEC - Interior Design Educators Council

CIDA – Council for Interior Design Accreditation

NCIDQ – National Council for Interior Design Qualification

IDCEC – Interior Design Continuing Education Council

CIDQ – Council for Interior Design Qualification

A&D – Architecture and Design

What is our role as interior designers?

In looking at what our role is as designers one might consider what and how we are trying to communicate information. After reading Board & Vellum’s blog on architectural acronyms he reminded me that we are not only in the role of developing design but communicating design to others. Such as to the A&D and OAC team aka the Architecture and Design Community and the Owner, Architect and Contractors along with consultants such as engineers or specialists, colleagues, architectural representatives. We as designers should consider how we are communicating our vision to others.

If you search for architectural acronyms you will find thousands of them. One side of the fence could be to make it look as “professional” as possible by cramming in as many acronyms into a drawing set or specification. On the other side could it be better to approach each opportunity to communicate with some restraint. That might be looking at this from a fresh set of eyes to make sure you are using a term that is clear to everyone involved. So instead of putting up barriers in your communication you are meeting the team where they are at. As it is, we already struggle in the English language to align our thoughts when we are faced with diverse global backgrounds, typologies, cultural patterns, and regions.

Tips #4

Make your job easier and VE acronyms from your arch-i-slang.

I would advise to question your professional role in the use of acronyms. In order to serve your clients, it seems we ethically should be communicating to our fullest ability. I am sure many of you have witnessed the moment when communication brakes down between team members, a client or contractor. I have had multiple cases where well written thoughtful emails were misunderstood. And I have had to fight to get a team together via phone or in person to pull the group back together to align our perspectives. Imagine putting the arch-i-slang into the mix. It’s a recipe for things to breakdown.

Summary

I challenging you too:

Be conscious about how and when you use acronyms.
Make sure to define the acronym if your using it in front of your clients or consultants.
Double check you are not using an acronym that might have another meaning. Especially if its one that is unprofessional and inappropriate.
Avoid falling into the pitfall of arch-i-slang when possible. Just cause others are doing it doesn’t mean you should. Right?

Curious about the meanings of architectural acronyms then head on over to my show notes where you can find additional resources.

For this week’s challenge please go to Mile Long Trace Instagram feed, respond to this podcast post and add a design acronym or two to the feed so we can build our professional interior design acronym list. If you have any great war stories about using acronyms please email me at elizabeth@milelongtrace.com.

And above all don’t let acronyms pull you down keep on designing. Have a great day ya’ll.